{"id":181224,"date":"2017-08-21T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T18:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=181224"},"modified":"2017-08-24T15:59:08","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T10:29:08","slug":"dreams-of-being-sri-lankas-big-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/dreams-of-being-sri-lankas-big-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreams Of Being Sri Lanka\u2019s Big King!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Granville Perera<\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka doles out media licenses based on political patronage. We have seen this being perfected by successive governments. The license holders provide the patronage to their political masters with absolute reverence that includes the current Yahapalanaya<\/a>, which has doled out licenses for crossing over Parliamentarians. A long time player in this game is probably aiming to be the Maharaja of broadcasts with the continued blatant prostitution of Media. They have even staged self-inflicted violence to gain the sympathy of the masses. Their long-term ass kissing is their agenda to control politics and the Sri Lankan economy.\u00a0<\/span>As nationals of foreign origin, it would be impossible to take political leadership in Sri Lanka, so they have chosen the next best by doing it through proxy and dream of gaining control of the country and the economy through their political and media stooges.\u00a0<\/span>The airwaves are not anyone\u2019s personal property, not even the Government\u2019s to dole out to its stooges. They belong to the people and should be used to deliver development oriented free media culture. Media networks need to have integrity, honesty and respect. This People\u2019s (not stooges) Channel needs to be monitored and checked before they place their lackeys at the highest level of governance through influence peddling using our airwaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

In modern Sri Lanka as in many other global societies, the people who hold the levers of state power control the deployment of vast riches; every decision on the issuance of state mega project is worth billions to someone. The potential beneficiaries of these policies have every motive to influence the political destiny of the country. The Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a> dynasty perfected this influence peddling to make Sri Lanka one of the most corrupt, pushing our debt repayment levels closer to 100% of our GNP.<\/span> The current Government is perfecting these corruption policies, mainly due to the \u2018poverty\u2019 that was inherited by its members in the 20 years in opposition. <\/span>The usual strategy adopted is bribery through cash contributions or commissions, shares and positions of power in the entities to the immediate family, sexual bribes, intimidation and other forms of influence peddling. The Maharaja has chosen to do it through intimidation using the media, calling it exposures \u201cWe Report, You Decide\u201d a line copied from FOX NEWS. Their political stooges are given wide exposure in their media network to gain political mileage and re-election.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Maharaja<\/a> has cleverly chosen to mislead the nation by portraying their media empire as a Sinhala Buddhist entity, bringing to the fore Buddhist mercenaries and priests who go around temples, doling out water tanks, water pipes, cement and paint to give the impression that the Sasanaya is being rescued by this media network. They also appease the Tamil militants and Tamil Diaspora through their Shakthi network and their chief anchor Sri Ranga of Minnel fame who has been deployed to attack their Tamil speaking political opponents. Who can forget that Sri Ranga was caught attempting to fix a political discussion in a live broadcast during the run up to the January 2015 elections? It is rumored that Rishad Bathiudeen, the Muslim maverick kicked the shit out of Sri Ranga at Temple Trees just prior to the Presidential Election in 2015 due to the attempted intimidation and carrying tales about of the All Ceylon Muslim Congress. They also have an atypical Buddhist priest, Battaramulle Seelaratne Thera who is given prime time news slots to comment on socio political issues that he is clueless about.<\/span><\/p>\n